This Voice
by spacecow1993
Summary: This voice is jubilant. This voice is calm. This voice is desperate. This voice is somehow doglike. This is this voice's story. And maybe someone elses.


**a/n: so. This is pretty much just blips of Sirius's life. Not always from his perspective. I dunno if it will be in order or not. Dunno if I'll finish it. Just putting it out there. In case you wanted to read it. Please please review if you do. Even if it's to flame. If it sux, I want to get rid of it. I tried to redo the first chapter. Wasn't really happy with it. Thanks for being so wonderfully nice anyway. Lyn Dulce: you are getting sleeeeeeepy, sleeeeeepy! I guess I should do it now. **

**Oh, and I don't own Harry Potter. Psh. I wish.**

I'm already half crazy just now as I get to my stall. It didn't take long for the dementors to do that. They suck you dry, leave you nothing. It doesn't take long for you to forget who you are. They strip you of your individuality, so there's nothing left of you but all the pain you endured. Hypothetically, if you had inured no pain, you'd be safe. But everyone has had pain. Everyone. You give a baby to a dementor, and their whole life is just being squeezed out of the warm place, of the bright lights, and all the strange things, and the unavoidable _slap_ that forced them to breathe and take part in this world. Everyone's had pain, and it works especially well on criminals. All criminals have seen pain. Some guy with a loving family and a great job doesn't up a kill someone. Something made murderers that way. Some pain. Unless they were innocent. Then don't you think the look of horror on their families face, the unforgiving _smack_ of the gavel would be enough? Dementors take away the happy; make you forget the warm place. They leave you with the pain, the hurt, and then they start taking that too. I need something to hang on to, something besides hurt, or I'll permanently lose my sanity. So I scream.

Oh, it isn't just screaming. I'm screaming words. At least I think I am. You never really know any thing for sure in Azkaban. The pain is just too much. You can't tell up from down, black from white. And, deny it all you will the clamping fist of pain will choke you.

My mother is dead. I can see her body, cold and white. I can see her hair fanning out like a silver halo. I can see her perfect dainty features, just like Cissy's. I can see two pale hands, my hands, reaching, grabbing her shoulders, shaking her hard, screaming for her to wake up.

My dignity is destroyed. I can see their taunting fingers. I can see their sneers. I can see boy after boy swarming around Cissy, even in our disgrace. I can see the appraising eye of my governess; I can see her lips form the words, _just like her father_. I can see a smashed mirror, I can feel wet cheeks.

My lord is gone. Oh god, my lord is gone! I can see the filthy mudblood lovers celebrating in the streets. I can see that coward Luisus abandon, with so many others, pouring money into the ministry's pocket, to avoid imprisonment. I can see our meeting place, empty and barren. I can see the words on every lip, hear them on every tongue. He is gone, he is gone! The dark lord is gone! My world is destroyed with the flick of a wand and a lighting shaped scar!

All I have is what he will give me when he returns. So I fill my mind with that. With riches, and glory, and my lord the lord of the world! His dream reality! Mud bloods destroyed! And I, raised above them all, to kiss my lord's feet for my undying loyalty!

But this is a happy thought, and those traitor dementors gleefully suck me dry. If they have glee. And so I scream. I scream of the glory of my lord, of the coming day! But the words sound empty to my ears. As soon as these thoughts enter, my head, they are gone. As soon as I picture the beautiful face of my master he is gone. And now the words sound detached. I am not sure who saying them. And the doubts come. They come and jab me with their fingers like swords. They swirl around me, they offer no relief. _He is dead._ They whisper. _Look around you. You are in Azkaban. Your lord would save you if he was real. You should have left with Luscius. He is defeated, and by a baby! He is WEAK!!_

"NO!" I scream, "IT"S NOT TRUE!" and suddenly I am sobbing, sobbing, for how can I be happy with nothing with my pain? How can I be happy with these doubts torturing me, how can I be happy without beauty, without my mother, without my lord?

And now I hear a voice like glass, so clear and crisp, and somehow dog-like, so sane, compared even with mine. I voice I hate, a voice I loath. A voice that brings back shame, shame bestowed on my family, besmirching the noble name of Black! The memories of that night, with all those greedy pudgy eyes watching, and to hear the hat scream that hated word, set upon that hated crown. Oh, the shock reeling through me, of all those nasty children witnessing the worst night for all Blacks! Oh, and of course they carried it on! Of course every wizard and witch in Britan had a owl relaying the news! 6 howlers! 3 engagements almost fallen through! Endless whispers and years of shame! This voice fills me with anger, it rips at my heart, it makes every inch of me boil! And it stays. Those memories, this rage, it stays. They are not happy, and the dementors do not take them. That voice I never wanted to hear again throws me a life line, gives me something the dementors would leave to me, that voice saves my life as it says:

"Really Bellatrix, I thought for sure you could last at _least_ longer than 30 minutes."

I hate my cousin. I hated him from the moment I heard the roar "Gryffindor". But he is saving me. And I hate it. I am in his debt. I will not stay in his debt. But I _will not_ repay him. There is only one solution. I must kill him. But not yet. I know I must survive for my lord. So when ever the doubts come, whenever I cannot remember exactly how my lord's eyes burn, whenever the despair swallows me like a never-ending well whenever I can see my father blundering without my mother, whenever the walls call me ugly, whenever the doubts puncture me with their not-so-unclear untruths, I call out. Almost pleadingly. I scream of the inferiority of mudblood, I rant of the stupidity of the hated _Dumbledore_, and when he remains quite and stoic, I taunt him about the potters. And he explodes. He yells of the nobility of them, and of the worthlessness of Blacks. The warm fizz of rage comes. That familiar buzz of rage. I claw my way out of the well with insults, I swallow the doubts with screams. I attack the walls, as if I can kick my way through to him three cells down, and my lord's royal face burns in my mind, filling me with fervor.

I wonder if he knows he is saving me. I wonder if he means to keep me alive. I wonder if he needs it just as much as me. No, he does not need it. Something else keeps him alive.

For years in that hellhole of a prison, my cousin keeps me alive. He battles away the doubts with my hatred of him. Our shouting matches, our desperate attempts to get at each other, to tear each other limb from limb, it keeps me Bellatrix. It saves me from becoming a mindless prisoner. But something saves him more. While I barely hang on, he is always as sane as when they brought him in.

one day a man comes. He is nervous, and he carries something in his hand. _Parchment_. Part of me says. I am aware I am a mess. The dirt has been on me so long, the grease in my hair so long, I do not care. He passes me hurriedly. I can see he stops at my once-cousin's cell. I slink against the wall. The pain that is now a part of my life encircles me. I hear noises. The man is leaving. He does not have his paper.

The doubts come. They taunt me, stab me. They burrow within me. They claw at my flesh, they burn me._ Look at you! _They say._ You are a disaster! You cannot survive without that traitor! And all for a lord who is dead! _I cry out, in desperation, "blood traitor! Mudblood lover!"

For a long moment, he is silent. His voice, when it comes, is steely. "No, Bellatrix. No. I do not have time to fight with you. He is loose. He is at Hogwarts. He is in danger."

I curl into a ball, and the doubts attack. They spin, faster, and faster. _Bellatrix, they coo, oh Bellatrix? What will you do now, with nothing to distract you. No husband, no cousin, no lord._ "NO!" I scream, _oh, yes, they say he is gone. You are wasting away for nothing!_ I scream insults, on him, on Dumbledore, on even James. He does not answer, and I have no relief.

Sometime later, I cannot tell the nights from days, an impossibly skinny dog passes my cell. _The grim, _I thought_, maybe I'm going to die. Or maybe I'm insane. _

Azkaban is more active than I've ever seen it. Wizards and witches run back and forth, shouting at each other. Dementors glide past constantly, bringing with them a wind of despair . I hear one witch shout, "…escaped! The prisoner Black!" I shrink into an impossibly small corner. He is gone. I hate him more than anything, and he is gone. He caused me so much pain, and rage, but that same rage saved me. It banished the doubts. It dispelled them with their stinging fingers and crushing lies. He saved me from them. Now they are back, and he's left me to face them alone.

**Yea! I did it! Sigh….. And now I must say goodbye to Bellatrix. I hate her, but she is such an interesting character. Hmmmmmmm…. Maybe I'll bring her back for a later chapter….. NOW!!!! I did all that work, the LEAST you could do is review! Sniffle… **

**Click it. You know you want to… **


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